INF Treaty - coming to the end of its life

Probably thinking they are making a land based Kalibr with a range of 1,500 - 3,000km Plus for the land based launcher

_________________“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Yankee turdlets better be careful trying to smear Russia with their retarded lies. A nuclear free for all does notguarantee Yankee turdlet success. In fact, they can find themselves f*cked six ways to Sunday.

Really, Americans have too many delusions about the Cold War with the USSR. Military spending is not what "broughtdown the evil empire". America itself relies on GDP stimulus generated by military spending. The command economy GDPexperiences a similar stimulus but does not require vast sums of money since money does not function the sameway as in a capitalist economy. Negative impacts are diversion of resources away from consumer production, butthis was not a serious problem for the USSR. Serious problems were cases such as whole trainloads of produceleft to rot in marshalling yards (I know one such case from personal family experience). Clearly such negligencetranscends any particular focus of the economy. The USSR imploded out of long term social processes that had zero to do with military production.

So Yankee turdlets should not expect Russia to go under from a buildup of various classes of nuclear missiles andABM systems. It is also cheaper to deploy nuclear ICBMs than it is to deploy a dozen tanks which have vastly lessdeterrent potency.

Russia has developed a new ground-launched cruise missile that breaks the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the House of Representatives Permanent Select Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

Clapper reiterated a claim he previously made in earlier testimony to Congress on February 9.In that earlier testimony, Clapper acknowledged that Russia had denied it was violating the INF Treaty.

They are making this claim for long time and Russian POV is they are not doing that and US needs to back up its claim with evidence.

US says its depending on some source/spy information inside the system and disclosing evidence would put him in danger

The Obama Administration wants to alter a plutonium-disposal pact. What will Russia demand in return?

Fresh off last year’s deal to limit Iran’s nuclear development, the Obama administration is mulling another nuclear deal — this one with Russia. Washington wants to change course on a plan laid with Moscow 16 years ago to dispose of its share of 68 metric tons of plutonium.

“Clearly, we do have some diplomatic work to be done in this area,” Rose Gottemoeller, undersecretary of State for arms control and international security, said Tuesday at a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington.

In 2000, Washington and Moscow agreed to dispose of nuclear weapons waste through a process that mixes waste plutonium with uranium oxide. This creates mixed oxide fuel pellets, known as MOX, which can be burned in commercial nuclear power plants. The transformation of America’s 34 metric tons of plutonium to MOX was supposed to happen at the Savannah River Site, a multibillion-dollar facility in South Carolina. But after 16 years and $4 billion, the plant is only about 70 percent complete. (Russia is burning its own plutonium in a fast reactor.)

So in 2013, the White House began to look at alternatives. Last month, as part of its 2017 budget proposal, the Energy Department announced it would “pursue a dilute and dispose approach as a faster, less expensive path to meeting the U.S. commitment to dispose of excess weapons grade plutonium.” This would involve storing the diluted plutonium in New Mexico.

Some have cheered this search for alternatives to the expensive MOX plant. Others say that too much has already been spent to simply walk away. These include Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., whose state stands to get jobs and revenue from the plant.

Still others point out the foreign-policy aspects to changing course. “The Russians have long opposed burying the plutonium because it doesn’t really destroy the material, as burning the MOX in a reactor does—it can be retrieved and reused for nuclear weapons purposes,” former Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., wrote in Politico last year. “Given current tensions with Russia, any renegotiation of the plutonium agreement could require us to make costly or damaging concessions.”

Frank Klotz, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the arm of the Energy Department that oversees the MOX project, said at a March 16 Senate appropriations energy and water subcommittee hearing that once the U.S. government decides on a new plutonium disposal plan, it would be presented to the Russians. That did not sit well with Graham.

“That is absolutely the dumbest frickin’ plan I could think of: to change course and hope the Russians would agree and not know what they’re going to charge you for it,” Graham said.

Pentagon leaders have spent the past year labeling Russia as America’s top threat, in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and more recent support of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

But even with Washington-Moscow relations at an ebb, Gottemoeller said the two superpowers still cooperate on projects to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, citing Russia’s role in Iran deal and another pact to remove chemical weapons from Syria.

“I think … we do seem to be able to develop good cooperation in areas that are related to weapons of mass destruction,” she said. “I would think that this [plutonium disposal] matter could be one where we could have some good, solid cooperation, but I don’t want to talk further about diplomatic efforts.”

Russia is looking to upgrade the digital cameras used in surveillance overflights of the U.S. permitted under the Open Skies Treaty. However, some key House leaders are hoping to block U.S. approval of the new gear, which is required under the terms of the treaty.

"In recent years, instead of using the Treaty for its intended purpose, Russia has been using its Open Skies flights to expand its espionage capabilities," House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) wrote in a June 14 letter to President Obama.

Admiral Cecil Haney, the commander for U.S. Strategic Command, has alleged that Russia has been using the treaty as a key "component" for collecting intelligence information used against the U.S.

The members of Congress, citing such opinions, expressed concern that the administration will allow Russia to "significantly upgrade the sensors" on such flights, allowing them to collect more data and information on U.S. activities.

"Allowing Russia to upgrade the sensors used in these flights to digital technology would only make this worse… We urge you to heed the advice of senior military personnel and other officials and reject this Russian request while examining modern alternatives to these flights," the lawmakers said.

Russia is proposing to upgrade from film-based surveillance cameras to digital. President Obama must agree to the changes before any upgrades can take place. An inter-agency review process that includes the State Department, the Pentagon, and the intelligence community is expected to produce a recommendation later this month.

The Open Skies treaty spans 34 countries, and allows participants to conduct aerial surveillance on one other. The goal is to give countries mutual understanding and transparency about ground-level military activity.

However, Russia has not always played by the rules, according to U.S. officials. Rose E. Gottemoeller, the State Department's undersecretary of arms control and international security, testified in December 2015 that the U.S. is troubled by Russia's Open Skies implementation, "in particular, with Russia’s continued denial or restriction of observation flights over portions of Russian territory."

Military officials are concerned that Russia will use more advanced camera and mapping capabilities to conduct espionage on the U.S. homeland.

"The things you can see, the amount of data you can collect, the things you can do with post-processing using digital technologies allows Russia in my opinion to get incredible foundational intelligence on critical infrastructure, bases, ports, all of our facilities," Lt. General Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in March 2 testimony on Capitol Hill.

The lawmakers urged the president to deny Russia's request on upgrading sensors and instead, transition over to commercial satellite imagery which "may provide the confidence building measures and level of transparency that all signatories, including our allies and partners, envisioned at the outset of the Treaty while minimizing Russia’s opportunities for abuse and obstruction."

When contacted for comment, administration officials would say only that "the White House is aware of the letter and will respond through appropriate channels."

You can rest assured that when some US politician, functionary or pundit accuses Russia of spying it is the USA that is engagedin full bore espionage. This is a common ploy in politics: accuse your opponent of your own sins. I find this "concern" over digitalcamera resolution to be a joke. Digital cameras can't see through walls and ground. And the USA would have exactly the samerights to upgrade its cameras under the terms of the treaty. Pure political propaganda theater from Yankee turds.

A US surveillance plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Russia Wednesday, following an issue with the landing gear.

Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Michele Baldanza told Defense News that the plane initially took off from a Russian airfield in Ulan Ude to begin an observation flight, but discovered the landing gear would not fully retract.

"The crew, in cooperation with the Russian escort crew on-board, terminated the treaty observation mission and diverted to Khabarovsk to drop off the escort crew and to exit Russia using the most direct route possible to facilitate inspection and repair at a US base in Japan," Baldanza said. "Khabarovsk is a frequently utilized Open Skies Airfield, designated by Russia for treaty purposes, but it is not normally a 'point of exit' for treaty missions."

She added that because the mission was terminated, no imagery was collected during the flight. The aircraft has since left Khabarovsk — located in southeastern Russia, about 77 km from the Chinese border — and transited to Kadena Air Base in Japan to undergo maintenance, and is expected to return to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska once the problem is corrected.

The aircraft was identified as a Boeing-made OC-135B, in an initial report from the Express newspaper in the UK.

Concern over the treaty spiked in February, however, when Russia announced plans to add a new digital electro-optical sensor to its Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft used for Open Skies flights. Pentagon officials and lawmakers alike raised the alarm that the new sensors would give Russia an informational edge over what can be gathered by the equipment used by the US.

According to a US Air Force fact sheet, the plane comes equipped with one vertical and two oblique KS-87E framing cameras for low-altitude photography, and one KA-91C panoramic camera, which scans from side to side to provide a wide sweep for each picture at a height of approximately 35,000 feet. It has a crew of up to 35.

Russia Welcomes US Offer to Hold Special INF Treaty Commission in November

Russia welcomes the United States' offer to to convene a Special Verification Commission (SVC) of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty next month, the Russian Foreign Ministry's head of Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department said Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Mikhail Ulyanov told RIA Novosti that the SVC is envisioned in the 1987 INF Treaty, with its functioning parameters outlined in a Soviet-US memorandum followed by a five-party memorandum with the participation of Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus.

"In accordance with the rules, any party may convene the SVC meeting. The US took advantage of their right, we have responded positively, that is their right. They have now decided to use this platform to continue the conversation 13 years after the previous meeting, when the US curtailed the work of this commission," Ulyanov said.

He added that Moscow plans to discuss three topics with the US at the SVC session in Geneva sometime in mid-November.

"The first two are combat drones and target drones. These questions have been 'stalled' since 2001, when we first voiced concerns to the US and are yet to receive a satisfactory response," Ulyanov said.

"The third question is about Mk-41 launchers, which arose in connection with the construction of missile defense components in Romania. It is relatively new at two-three years, but here we have not received convincing answers. The US reacts very superficially, and that creates problems," the official stressed.

The 1987 INF treaty prohibits the development, deployment or testing of ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles.

In May, the United States activated its Aegis ashore ballistic missile defense system (BMDS) in Romania equipped with the Mk-41 launcher. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the deployment of Mk-41 Vertical Launching Systems (VLS) in Europe "a relatively new and rather serious violation of the INF Treaty." Moscow claims Mk-41 is capable of launching the Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles. Such a capability is prohibited by the INF Treaty.

Another Aegis ashore site is under construction in Poland. These sites are parts of the US-designated ballistic missile defense system in Europe, approved in 2010 during a NATO summit in Lisbon.